Many wood-frame buildings built in the early 20th Century have ground floors used as garages with large openings on the front wall and almost no interior walls. These buildings are broadly referred to as “soft-story”. They have bearing walls typically comprised of studs spaced 16″ on center. The studs are designed to carry vertical load, but they are not relied on to resist lateral loads generated by the building mass during an earthquake. As such, these building structures are susceptible to ground floor collapse during an earthquake. The earthquake retrofits of the prior art are expensive, complicated and require displacement of occupants during retrofit. What is needed is an inexpensive earthquake retrofit that can be performed by persons of average skill, with minimum invasion into the existing spaces and allowing current occupants to remain in the building during construction.